0 Berkes, Fikret, Colding, Johan Folke, Carl 2000 Ecological Applications 5 1251-1262 adaptive management, human ecology, resilience, resource management, Traditional Ecological Knowledge This article focuses on how indigenous peoples offer alternative knowledge and perspectives based on their own locally developed practices of resource use. The authors survey the international literature on the role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in monitoring, responding to, and managing ecosystem processes and functions, with special attention to ecological resilience. Using a variety of case studies, there is a large diversity of local or traditional practices for ecosystem management. These include multiple species management, resource rotation, succession management, landscape patchiness management, and other ways of responding to and managing pulses and ecological change. Social mechanisms behind these traditional practices are also examined in this article and include numerous adaptations for the generation, accumulation, and transmission of knowledge; the use of local institutions to provide leaders/stewards and rules for social regulation; mechanisms for cultural internalization of traditional practices; and the development of appropriate world views and cultural values. The authors show that some traditional knowledge and management systems were characterized by the use of local ecological knowledge to interpret and respond to feedbacks from the environment in order to guide the direction of resource management. Most importantly, these traditional systems had particular similarities to adaptive management with its emphasis on feedback learning, and its treatment of uncertainty and unpredictability intrinsic to all ecosystems. Prepared by: Mark A. Calamia [MAC], institutional affiliation?, July 2006